The Holy Spirit Gifts

Now these are the gifts Christ gave to the church: the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, and the pastors and teachers. Their responsibility is to equip God’s people to do His work and build up the church, the body of Christ. This will continue until we all come to such unity in our faith and knowledge of God’s Son that we will be mature in the Lord, measuring up to the full and complete standard of Christ. Then we will no longer be immature like children. We won’t be tossed and blown about by every wind of new teaching. We will not be influenced when people try to trick us with lies so clever – they sound like the truth.

I had a conversation the other day with some of the church and asked them how many prophets have you heard. They said they never even hear of a prophet. This verse was in my quiet time this morning and I thought it was interesting to see this list of gifts that God intended for building up the church and keep them away from new and false teachings. I have been told by pastors that the gifts of apostles and prophets are no longer needed, therefore, God has removed them. Even the gift and work of evangelism, is hardly talked about or encouraged in the church service today. Could this be why the ‘progressive’ doctrine has come into the church?